Best film books of 2009

By Thomas Gladysz
San Francisco Silent Film Examiner

In the world of silent film, there remain many stories to be told. And happily, there exists a cadre of scholars and early film enthusiasts who continue to tell those stories.

This past year has seen the release of a number of worthwhile books on silent film. There are new biographies, critical studies, pictorials, histories, and academic works, as well as a growing number of self-published titles. To some degree, each deserves our attention. Of these new books, some are notable for their scholarship, some for their pioneering efforts, and some for the grace of their prose.

Here are ten notable film books – among the best released over the course of the year. As it happens, most of them are biographies or biographical studies. The ten noted here are listed in order of release.

Douglas Fairbanks, by Jeffrey Vance and Tony Maietta
(University of California Press)

Douglas Fairbanks was one of the first film superstars - as well as a screenwriter, producer, co-founder of United Artists, and founder and first president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. His swashbuckling films have, to say the least, had a huge influence on subsequent works. Vance and Maietta’s deft amalgam of biography, film history, and critical analysis unfolds into a superb portrait of an industry pioneer critically important to the creation of cinema as a defining art form of the twentieth century. (Read an earlier interview with the authors here.)

Paul Bern: The Life and Famous Death of the MGM Director and Husband of Harlow, by E.J. Fleming
(McFarland)

Though Paul Bern earned a reputation as one of MGM's most respected and creative directors during the 1920’s and 1930’s, he is largely remembered today as having died under mysterious circumstances while married to Jean Harlow. Some claim suicide. Some claim murder. Some claim cover-up. Fleming’s latest book – heavily researched – goes a long way in painting a new portrait of this lost figure in film history.

Joseph P. Kennedy Presents: His Hollywood Years, by Cari Beauchamp
(Knopf)

Acclaimed film historian Cari Beauchamp’s latest is a no holds barred look at how the Father of President John F. Kennedy helped shape the film industry at a time of tremendous change. Joseph P. Kennedy was a prominent and at times ruthless businessman who ran three movie studios simultaneously, carried on an affair with Gloria Swanson, helped the industry transition from silent films to talking pictures, played a part in the ruin of both cowboy star Fred Thomson and director Erich von Stroheim, and made the fortune that became the foundation of his family’s political empire. (Read an earlier review here.)

Richard Barthelmess - A Life in Pictures, by David W. Menefee
(BearManor Media)

Few can forget the scene in D. W. Griffith's Way Down East when the character played by Richard Barthelmess rescues the Lillian Gish character from certain death on an ice floe. Alla Nazimova plucked Barthelmess from obscurity to act in her first film, and he went on to play signature roles in numerous other films including Broken Blossoms, Tol'able David, The Noose, The Patent Leather Kid, Dawn Patrol, and Only Angel's Have Wings. For the first time, the story of this twice Oscar-nominated silent film star is told.

Silent Film Stars on the Stages of Seattle: A History of Performances by Hollywood Notables by Eric L. Flom
(McFarland)

This is an interesting and worthwhile book for a number of reasons – though primarily because it does something different. Most film history is written from a “national perspective” – or at least from the point-of-view of either Los Angeles or New York. This new book is a slice of film history as seen through the lens of the local – with the time and place being Seattle, Washington in the early decades of the last century. Flom’s research has turned up a good deal of fascinating and little known material. (Read an earlier review here.)

Karl Dane: A Biography and Filmography, by Laura Petersen Balogh
(McFarland)

Karl Dane's life was a kind-of Cinderella story gone horribly wrong. This immigrant from Denmark was rapidly transformed from a machinist and bit actor to a much loved Hollywood star after his unforgettable turn as the tobacco-chewing Slim in The Big Parade. After that, Dane appeared in more than 40 films with such luminaries as Rudolph Valentino, Lillian Gish, John Gilbert and William Haines - until the talkies arrived. As one of the more famous casualties of the transition from silent to sound film, Dane reportedly lost his career because of his accent. The reasons, however, lay elsewhere. Tragically, Dane was broke and alone at the height of the Depression when he committed suicide in 1934.

Early Universal City, by Robert S. Birchard
(Arcadia Publishing)

Esteemed film historian Robert S. Birchard has authored his second Arcadia title. Early Universal City follows Silent-Era Filmmaking in Santa Barbara in a now familiar series of pictorial paperbacks focusing on aspects of local history. Known today for its theme park, Universal City is also the largest and the longest continuously operating movie studio in Hollywood. The company was formed by a dozen independent producers in 1912, and Universal City was designed to provide a single facility in which to make their films. And movies they made! Birchard’s book is a fascinating pictorial account of this virtual city run by a film industry giant.

Irving Thalberg: Boy Wonder to Producer Prince, by Mark A. Vieira
(University of California Press)

This may well be the definitive biography of an individual some consider one of the most important figures in the history of motion pictures. Known as Hollywood's “Boy Wonder,” Irving Thalberg ran Universal at age 20; co-found Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer at 24; and made stars of Lon Chaney, Norma Shearer, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, and Jean Harlow. He also created such film classics as Ben-Hur, Tarzan the Ape Man, Grand Hotel, and Mutiny on the Bounty, to name just a few. Thalberg died at thirty-seven, and his place in the pantheon of cinema greats should have been assured; however, his films were not reissued for 30 years, and later-day critics questioned his achievements. In this new work, Vieira sets the record right.

Lucky Stars: Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell, by Sarah Baker
(BearManor Media)

From their first pairing in 7th Heaven and in eleven films that followed, Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell created an unparalleled cinematic romance. Their partnership was such that in the minds and hearts of their adoring fans, they were one. Even though both enjoyed successful solo careers - their work as a team stood out. Even decades after their onscreen partnership ended, any mention of Gaynor in the press merited a mention of Farrell, and vice-versa. Drawing upon previously unpublished interviews with Farrell and Gaynor, interviews with family and friends, and archival research, author Sarah Baker details the fascinating behind the scenes story of one of the greatest romantic teams of all time.

King of the Movies: Francis X. Bushman, by Lon and Debra Davis
(BearManor Media)

Francis X. Bushman had a life like no other. He was a pioneering film actor and the screen's first great romantic idol, a bodybuilder, an artist's model, a Broadway and stock company actor, a husband (four times), a father (six times), a dog breeder, a songwriter, a vaudeville headliner, a radio performer, a television personality, and a senior citizens' advocate. He lived an exaggerated life, both as a free-spending multi-millionaire film star and a bankrupt has-been. After all the accolades and criticisms, he was that rare kind of man who had no regrets. The Davis' book tells his story with verve. (Read an earlier review here.)

ALSO WORTH CONSIDERING: Peter Cowie’s Joan Crawford: The Enduring Star (Rizzoli) is a pictorial of the legendary actress who skyrocketed to fame during the silent era with films like The Unknown and Our Dancing Daughters. David Mayer’s Stagestruck Filmmaker: D. W. Griffith and the American Theatre (University of Iowa Press) examines the early career of the pioneering director who worked as an actor, vaudevillian, and dramatist before he became a filmmaker. Rick Atkins’ Among the Rugged Peaks: An Intimate Biography of Carla Laemmle (Midnight Marquee Press) presents the life of the now 100 year-old niece of movie mogul Carl Laemmle, whose brief career included small parts in The Phantom of the Opera (1925) and Dracula (1931). Anthony Balducci’s Lloyd Hamilton: Poor Boy Comedian of Silent Cinema (McFarland) tells the story of the Oakland-born, baby-faced comic with the signature checkered cap whose troubled life came to an early end. (Read an earlier review here.)

Lucy Fischer edited American Cinema of the 1920s: Themes and Variations (Rutgers University Press), a collection of ten original essays by various scholars focusing on the emergance of the star system and other developments in the film industry during the 1920’s. Lynn Kear and James King’s Evelyn Brent: The Life and Films of Hollywood's Lady Crook (McFarland) is the first ever biography of the silent film star whose roles in Love Em and Leave Em, Underworld and The Last Command are still admired. This new book also features an introduction by film historian Kevin Brownlow. Edited by Joan Simon, Alice Guy Blache: Cinema Pioneer (Yale University Press) is collection of scholarly essays which celebrate the achievements of the first woman motion picture director and producer.